City officials in TIjuana held a press conference today to announce a series of new actions and strategies aimed of combating the recent wave of crimes committed against several businesses in the Downtown (Centro) and Zona Río district.

Raúl Felipe Luévano, the City's General Secretary, Felipe Chang, Municipal Police Chief, and Marco Antonio Sotomayor, Municipal Public Safety Secretary, acknowledged the three most recent armed robberies that captivated the media and public's attention these last few days. They pointed out that the suspects from two of those incidents are already in custody and invited citizens to report any crimes or suspicious activity to authorities.

Police Chief Felipe Chan also defended the response times in the case of the armed robbery against a popular restaurant in Zona Rio. He said that the response time between the first call after the incident and the first officers to arrive at the scene, was less than a minute.

Sotomayor then went on to detail the next steps to be taken by municipal security forces in the coming days in order to control the surge of crimes in the economically important restaurant and tourist districts of the city, which until now have been largely left out of the murder and crime spike in the city this year.

New steps to prevent crime in Zona Rio and Centro:

• Recently graduated police officers from the academy will be place permanently in the Zona Rio district, patrolling it and surrounding streets.

• 45 new squad cars will be put into operation.

• They'll seek to update the security camera system in the Tijuana (which is mostly connected to a centralized command hub run by the city, the C4), as well as to install more in businesses and public areas.

• Restaurant owners and employees will be offered crime prevention training thanks to the Negocio Seguro (Safe Business) program from the city government. This includes installing a panic button and security cameras.

All of is isn't just to satisfy tourists' worries about Tijuana, say the three city officials. Both the Centro and Zona Rio districts are one of the most important for local businesses and families in the city, and these new steps will be implemented immediately.

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@Joedesancho

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